She was late.
Emma wasn't one for missing appointments. Occasionally, very occasionally, her clients might. None had ever missed two -- she made sure of that. So it grated that her bus had been held up here in Isleworth as workmen cut the road open up ahead like a surgeon over a patient.
"Expect delays," advised the electronic sign on the pavement, and Emma murmured a curse to herself. This wasn't how you make a good impression -- not when you want to present the type of image which Emma needed to present.
Emma was what she liked to call an "exceptional methods tutor." Advertising herself on social media and university message boards, she offered her tutoring services to any student who could pay. She'd graduated from Oxford with honours -- her photographic memory made that fairly easy -- and even then couldn't find better work than a sweaty kitchen or a miserable care home. Maybe, she thought all the time, she shouldn't have gone with classics. "Waste of a perfectly good brain," her dad told her. So here she was, offering her abilities in other ways, guaranteeing results one way or the other, because after shepherding her best friend through her Master's she'd discovered quite the knack. Where did the "exceptional" come from? Well, she got those kinds of results out of her students. But the term described something else, too -- her methods.
The bus showing no sign of moving and other passengers already giving up, Emma did the same; she disembarked onto Jersey Road and hurried past Osterley Park under a greying September sky, leather messenger bag swinging from her shoulder. The new semester was a week old -- students were aplenty on the streets but Emma only had interest in one.
She would have broken into a run were it not a bit of a red flag for your tutor to turn up red and panting and sweaty -- that was how the student ought to be. If they'd earned it, of course. Instead, Emma came as close to power-walking as her self-conscious self would allow her to, marching past the roadworks and a group of shouting Christians handing out colourful pamphlets. The breeze kept wandering up her black dress -- she wondered if, perhaps, the outfit had overdone it. Ordinarily she'd go for a more casual look which communicated to the student her friendliness, her normality, that you could be at ease with her. Which you could be, of course, to a certain degree. But this new student seemed, at least to Emma, like one who'd respond well to an extra vibe of authority. It wasn't too hard to present -- with her ghostly pale skin, thin lips, cropped black hair, and sunken cheeks, she'd been told more than once that she'd make a good dominatrix. If the money ever got better, and the competition less challenging in a place like London, maybe she'd even think about it.
Bellingham Park, the student accommodation block housing a couple hundred eager-or-not first year students, was just around the corner now. It hadn't been such a long walk, after all -- Emma slowed, rolled her shoulders, stroked her sore hand, checked her reflection as she passed a parked black cab's window. Know the image to present, she told herself. It wasn't easy to stay in character, so to speak, all the time; but it was paying her rent and then some.
Once Emma reached Bellingham Park, she squeezed through the metal gate, thankfully ignored by the security officer who just sat in his booth and stared at his phone, and walked down the path between tall beech trees towards the main building. It was an old building, one of those godawful sixties blocks of concrete and brick with grimy windows, and there were already signs up advertising what they'd soon be building in its place. It was just another monstrosity, Emma thought, only this time it'd be plastic. Checking the signs as she went, looking for Lady Caldwell House -- one of the seven blocks on Bellingham Park -- Emma felt a pang of nostalgia for her old student days. The surroundings were rather more show-offy in Oxford, of course, but the energy was still here. It wasn't yet ten -- those who were awake on a Sunday looked either hungover to their eyeballs or were dressed for the gym. Two girls walked by in pyjamas and slippers -- Emma had to fight hard not to laugh at the sight. A part of her worried that a former tutee might see her, or that she'd otherwise be recognised, but besides a couple unwelcome male glances she went unseen on her way.
Once at Lady Caldwell, just another anonymous block of concrete with cigarette butts and lager cans decorating the floor outside the main entrance, Emma was halted by the double-doors. These required a student card to pass, which Emma lacked, and though she could have convinced one of the male students to let her in that'd only invite the expectation of a favour in return. Probably. It'd happened once -- it could happen again. So it was that Emma took her phone from her bag and, finding the right contact, a name reading 'Cara,' texted her.
"I'm outside Lady Caldwell House. Emma." Crisply formal and matter-of-fact. Not at all her normal way of being -- but she was in character now. Her phone pinged.
"One second!" Emma dropped her phone into her bag and waited. Goosebumps danced across her. They always did -- no matter how normalised this ridiculous job was, she always got excited. How could she not? The day it got so normal she stopped enjoying it, she'd promised herself, she'd quit.
A beep came from behind Emma, almost making her jump, and then someone pushed the door open. Cara stood there, holding it open, almost staring at her with her shy face. It was their first time seeing each other -- Cara was a Chinese student, slimly built, petite to the point of appearing delicate, with hair as black as Emma's but long and flowing down to her shoulder blades. Big, bright, brown eyes were covered by round glasses, and her fringe parted in places just enough that she couldn't quite hide the splattering of pink acne decorating her forehead, but otherwise her face was smooth and pale as porcelain. She wore a light blue blouse, sleeves all the way to her wrists, a beige pleated skirt which just passed her knees, and beyond her bare, pale calves she wore white trainers which looked clean enough to have been bought this morning.
"Hi -- Cara, right?" asked Emma. The girl nodded quickly, brushing errant hair from her eyes. "I'm Emma."
"Mhm," Cara replied, seeming unsure, one hand still on the door, as if she hadn't asked for Emma to come.
"Shall we go in?" Emma asked, sensing this might be a little tricker. Chinese students, especially girls, could be infamously shy -- it was the same everywhere.
"Okay," Cara said, her accent soft and sing-song, and she pushed the door open wider so Emma could step into Lady Caldwell. It smelled as bad inside as she'd thought it might. Students never change.
"This brings back memories," Emma remarked, looking around at the broken vending machine and laminated signs pointing to the IT Hub.
"Did you also go to college here?" Cara asked.
"No, Oxford," Emma said, "but it felt similar."
"Oh," Cara said, nodding.
"So, shall we go to your room and get started?" Emma asked.
"Yes," Cara agreed, and she turned to go up the stairs. Emma stayed a pace behind her -- Cara said nothing the entire walk, moving with a hurry in her stride and her skirt waving around her knees as she went, as if desperate to get back to the safety of her bedroom where the outside world couldn't see her. They went up three flights of stairs before passing a number of anonymous doors, the smell of weed emanating from behind at least one of them, before Emma thought she ought to keep conversation going.
"Do you like living here?" she asked. Cara looked over her shoulder and shook her head. The look she gave Emma was almost despondent.
"It's terrible," she replied. "Everyone is so loud and I can't study. I complain but they won't do anything."
"So you'll be moving out in second year?"
"I want to," Cara replied, stopping at a door -- its sign read 33. "This is my room."
"Great," said Emma, crossing her arms and watching Cara retrieve jangling keys from her skirt pocket. She unlocked the door and stepped inside -- Emma followed.
"I'm sorry about the mess," Cara said meekly, her hand drifting over the spotless, creaseless, dustless bedroom. Emma said nothing -- just shook her head as Cara went to the window and pushed it as far open as its latches would permit. The sound of traffic came in with the warm late-summer air. Then, hands holding each other, Cara turned to face Emma.
"Alright," said Emma, dropping her messenger bag onto the desk. "Why don't you sit down somewhere and we'll have a little talk?"
"Okay," Cara agreed, pulling her swivel chair out from under the wooden desk and turning it round, sitting to face Emma, who sat on Cara's bed. The mattress was so thin she thought she could feel the frame beneath it. These poor students. She wondered how much money Cara had come from and what a shock it must have been to open that door for the first time.
"Right," Emma began, "so, you'd like me to be your tutor for the academic year."
"Yes," Cara said, pushing her glasses up her nose with a finger. "I think I'll need extra help, a bit, and I saw your advert. Do you really guarantee a First?"
"I do," said Emma, smiling. "Or your money back."
"Wow," said Cara, seeming genuinely impressed.
"I know it's only been a week since the semester started but how are you finding the work so far?"
"Hard," Cara admitted. "Harder than I thought. So I think I need a tutor. And I can afford it. It's for Politics With Quantitative Research Methods. Is that okay?"
"It's a mouthful." Emma smiled.
"Mouthful?"
"Never mind," she said, shaking her head. "Don't worry -- I've memorised the textbooks so I'll be on top of the material. We'll need a couple of sessions to get a grip of your study strategies and how best we can adapt them. Within a month I can have you averaging ten more points than you'd otherwise be getting. Three months and we'll be in regular First category. Guaranteed." Cara didn't seem to quite be listening -- she seemed vaguely dumbstruck.
"You memorised the material?" asked Cara, slowly.
